Silence
by stormseaker
Summary: 'Hiro takes three steps forward, and the building explodes in a plume of bright fire and a wave of sound that punches him in the face. The world goes dark and silent.' A series of drabbles following a could have been.
1. Chapter 1

Hiro takes three steps forward and the building explodes in a plume of bright fire and a wave of sound that punches him in the face. The world goes dark and silent.

When he opens his eyes, there are black and white spots scattered across the ceiling. The sound doesn't come back. He hurts all over, his skin stings like its sunburnt, and there is a creeping itch that wraps around his head. Bandages, inquiring fingers find.

It takes a lot of miming, and a note pad, but he understands that the explosion ruptured his ear drums. The flash blindness will fade. But his ears… They don't know if that will heal, he'll just have to wait and see. Until then there are antibiotic eardrops and bandages and appointments to be scheduled and Hiro apes 'yes, yes, fine. Where is my brother?'

It takes a lot more than miming and scribbled notes to convince Hiro that Tadashi isn't just off in another hospital room.

Hiro squeezes his eyes shut and the spots multiply. He throws his arms over his head. The silence doesn't get any deeper, but his head feels less like it's about to explode.


	2. Chapter 2

It's dark and still in his bedroom. He keeps the drapes closed, and with the duvet covers over his head he can pretend that its night and everyone else is in bed and that is why it is so quiet and why there is no movement on the other side of the room.

Sanfransyoko is never silent. Tadashi snores.

Snored.


	3. Chapter 3

GoGo comes by the cafe the most. Every Tuesday and Thursday on the way to her courier job. She's the one who gives Hiro the sound to text system he ends up using. It straps to his arm and sounds picked up by its microphones scroll across the screen as text in various colours and sizes according to pitch and volume.

It was a entrance project for a student a few years ago, and won them a spot at SFIT. Hiro can see why. It's a smart little invention, and super customisable. Not that he has. Every car horn, thump and bump and the laughing chatter from the street pops up on his forearm. GoGo must have adjusted a few settings though, because it vibrates for attention whenever someone calls his name.

He whispers Tadashi and it fills the screen with green, filling the space under his bed sheets with dim light. The first time he mispronounces his brothers name and a nonsense jumble scrolls across the screen, he throws the device into the wall and screams until he can't.


	4. Chapter 4

It's Aunt Cass who activates Baymax for the first time. She trips over Mochi, and Hiro watches from his seat at the computer as she has a one sided conversation with the giant marshmallow.

The robot is big and squishy, has no lips to read and is lacking in any facial expressions or significant body language. For the first time it dawns on him to be annoyed that he can't hear anything as Aunt Cass lets it inspect her bumped elbow.

Hiro turns around to the computer and ignores them both in favour of the speech therapy recording that he'd pulled up as soon as Aunt Cass had tripped the first weight sensor at the bottom of the stairs. His eyes are unfocussed and he isn't thinking of much of anything when he sees the sensor flash again and he knows that Aunt Cass has left.

When he turns around he head bumps into the robot hovering far too close to his shoulder and Hiro flails and falls to the floor in what should be a noisy mess, hitting himself in the face, and dragging the dirty clothes piled on top of his bed with him.

He grits his teeth and manages not to swear, even as the marshmallow starts prodding at him. Then he gets poked in the eye by a malfunctioning microbot.


	5. Chapter 5

'That was his mistake!' flashes bold and yellow across his visor.

The world doesn't go red.

Hiro is smart. A certified genius. Inside his head there are a hundred different tracks of thought going at once. It's chaotic. Noisy.

'That was his mistake!'

His mind goes quiet. Poised. Hiro can see very, very clearly.

The neurotransmitter is in his hand. It slides in under his helmet and he can feel the slight tingle as the receptors activate. The mask smells funny, like sweaty socks and Hiro breathes shallowly though his mouth as the microbots swarm and sort themselves into neat, orderly lines around him. Around Callaghan.

Hiro is still, and calm, and quiet


	6. Chapter 6

Hiro blinks awake. He takes in the burry green celling and overwhelming smell of plastic, sweat, and stale vomit, and sighs. Hospital.

_Well_. He thinks. The thought doesn't go any further.

He hurts vaguely all over, and there is a foul taste in his mouth. Stale, with a hint of rotten oranges. He recognises the effects of a sedative and grumbles under his breath. At least his teeth didn't ache this time. He rolls his head and winces, his vision doesn't sync up with the movement. The world wavers and the ceiling lights bleed ribbons and he has to swallow hard around the vertigo.

He blinks heavy eyes into focus. He's lying in a circle of curtains, under which he can see several sets of feet hurrying back and forth making them sway.

_Emergency_. He recognises. It looks busy.

He carefully twists his head the other way and is surprised to find he is alone. His brother and Aunt Cass always wait with him in hospital, even though Aunt Cass says doctors give her hives. She'd come to every single one of his immunology appointments. She'd held his hand for every booster. Her palm had been much clammier than Tadashi's.

Hiro shifts, worry stirring. Where are they? He strains to hear if they are talking beyond the curtain, recognises the absence of sound and thinks _deaf, stupid_. And he remembers. Tadashi's absence tears at him anew and he gropes for something else to focus his muzzy mind on.

The creepy island. They'd found Kabuki man. _Callaghan_. Rage and clarity. He'd, he'd picked up the mask and put the neuro-receptor on. Then. He'd…what?

Hiro's memory failed him. What then? Mask on his face, then…what?

His rage remained, but under the influence of the sedative it felt wispy. He couldn't get a grip on it. The world was blurring, his eyelids heavy. He blinked himself back to sleep.

_then,what,then,what,then..._


End file.
